


Whistling Past the Graveyard

by a_haunted_sock



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 19th Century, Alternate Universe - Frankenstein (Mary Shelley), Angsty Teen Drama, Bad Decisions, Blood and Violence, Dubious Ethics, F/M, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Frankenstein AU, Gen, Holt family feels, Major Character Undeath, Medical Inaccuracies, Secret Organizations, Temporary Character Death, The Holt Family go to some dark places in this, Unethical Experimentation, monster love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2020-11-14 23:49:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20856581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_haunted_sock/pseuds/a_haunted_sock
Summary: He held the rifle up to his eye, trying to get the most accurate shot. It wasn't easy, sitting so many yards away from his intended target. The creature was very convincing, too; wearing one of the girl's dresses and bonnet and sitting very delicately upon the settee. He couldn't see its face, but he figured once she turned around he'd make his shot right between the eyes. Painless, that way. He wasn't a cruel man, this was merely business. The human-thing got up slowly, putting it's book down, and as it turned to face the window and gaze into the dark night beyond, the assassin almost fell out of the tree he crouched in."Pidge!?" he breathed out in a crack of his voice.





	1. Frankenweenie

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, lovely people! This is my first VLD fanfic and my first fanfic in, oh, about ten years give or take, so I hope it's enjoyable! I'm more of a visual artist but this idea was begging to be fleshed out into a full fic, so here is the culmination! This fic is a Frankenstein AU because I really had an urge to see Pidge (usually in the inventor/creator role) as the creation for once, and I threw in Lance for good measure! And while this fic probably won't be finished by Halloween, it's still season-savvy.  
And awaaaaaay we go!

The fog hung heavy over the moors as the mid-autumn sun began to set over the land, signaling to the farmers out in their fields that it was finally time to put down their scythes and continue their harvest the next day and to the tradesmen that their toiling could now cease. The sleepy village of Plahttown was like any other village in the county or, for that matter, the country. People got up, lived their lives, and never really gave much thought to the larger world outside of what was in front of them daily. There simply wasn’t enough time for such things. The wind blew for ill or good on its citizens and there was life, death, and everything in between. Death, as it was unanimously decided along the human race, was absolutely inevitable and totally and completely permanent. A family could lose a father or mother or sometimes both to an unfortunate accident or children could be carried off by sudden illness and there would forever be a hole where they were. It was a fact of life and was always at the back of the average person’s mind, utterly helpless when the time came. How ironic, then, was it that one of the most prominent families in the county had made it their business to reject this norm.

The bar was rancous tonight. It hadn’t been in a long time but, as Matt observed, the harvesting of the field was now completely done and the farm hands could now spend their wages and enjoy the end of their labors with drink and merriment. The lights’ glow seemed to become hazy and dreamy the more beer Matthew drank and it put him in a relaxed state, content to watch the other men in the tavern sing obnoxiously while Lance, sitting on his other side, joined in here and there. 

“So, is your family done with the harvest, too?” Matt asked as he turned back to the bar, reaching his arm across his food to replace his tankard of beer. Lance, with his clothes rumpled and filthy from the day’s sweat and grime, turned his head to consider what his older friend just asked him. 

“Eh? Yeah, we’ve still got a few pigs to slaughter before the first frost sets in, though, so there will be enough meat. Now that Nadia’s old enough to eat more solid foods there’s another mouth to feed. It’s gonna be a rough winter, ya know?” Lance replied as he took another swig. Matt nodded along. Lance was only three years younger than him yet had more responsibility than Matt ever had. He sympathized with his drinking mate but had long ago learned not to try to help him or his family of farmers monetarily. Lance was far too proud for that kind of nonsense. As Matt tucked in to his food, Lance put his tankard down, empty. That was the second one of the night. 

“Well? How’re things on your end? Still working for your father? Hasn’t he taught you everything you need to know so you can strike out on your own yet? I thought you’d at least leave for university by now,” Lance commented idly, swirling the tankard in circular motions, letting the leftover foam curl and trail at the bottom of the glass. Matt took his time answering, wondering how to best explain the situation to his friend. It was true, at 22 years of age, that he was overdue for truly becoming his own man and leaving his family to pursue his own dreams if he belonged to any other family. In truth he had finished his apprenticeship with his father two years ago, but stayed on because the final project his father had been working on was the magnum opus that was too important to miss having a hand in. Once it was done, Matt would feel secure enough to leave for the capital to study and make his fortune, he was sure. 

“Ah, just a bit longer with him, I think! And hey, don’t try to push me out the door so fast! Once I leave, we won’t see each other for a long time!” Matt clapped his friend on the back, trying to bring back the light atmosphere. Lance chuckled.

“Heh, I’m not subtle, am I? Of course I want you gone, that way there’ll be nobody in my way to woo your little sister! She’s, what, eighteen now? Perfectly old enough to want to come with me on some...midnight horseback riding,” Lance waggled his eyebrows at Matt and he promptly glowered and punched him in the shoulder in retaliation. He knew that Lance was partially joking. His friend was often ostracized by some in the village for his heritage but to the more adventurous girls he was exotic and handsome and Lance fully took advantage of these attributes. He was a bona fide skirt chaser but Matt never considered him dangerous, least of all in regards to his younger sister. He knew that Lance was a responsible young man and very protective over his family and friends and would extend that same courtesy to his sister, if there was ever a need. Besides that, though, Matt knew Lance had never even met his sister, other than Matt's description of her. Still, the comment momentarily infuriated him. Lance took the hit in stride and shrugged his coat on.

“Ah, it’s about time I hit the road. Nice to see you again, Matt! Take care.” Lance’s long legs strode towards the door of the pub, getting a few dirtier glances from the more sober patrons as he briskly walked out. Matt stared after him. Lance was a fun guy to be around whenever he was in town, but he sure didn’t stay too long, ever. Glancing up at the clock behind the bar, Matt noted the time was seven sharp. Yeah, he thought, he always leaves at 7 on the dot. Must be because he lives farther out of town. Matt put down the money for the tab, slipped into his own coat, and headed out the tavern door while saying hello to familiar faces as he did. Outside, the world had grown completely dark, perfectly normal for mid-November, and the breeze blew stray leaves along the black cobbled street. Matt breathed in the crisp night air, perfectly buzzed as he made his way back up the high street towards home.

\-------------

As far outside of the village as any farm Lance could work on, the residence Matthew’s family lived in was called Garrisol Manor situated on hundreds of acres and protected by a high stone wall. Although it was probably out of propriety for Matthew to be walking instead of taking a carriage, he preferred it as a means of greater freedom. His parents did not see a problem with this either. The Holts, despite their wealth and affluence, were very unorthodox in how they conducted themselves. After all, Samuel had not been born into such a lifestyle but rather it had been earned through his continual stream of commissions by both the government and the military for his various inventions that improved the life of the common foot soldier as well as the upper brass. It had provided his family with a comfortable living beyond any prospects they could’ve possibly dreamed of for his wife and for their children later on. Truly, Matthew and his sister had never known want and were encouraged by their parents to pursue knowledge just as eagerly as they had. 

As Matt walked through the front door, greeted by the servants most jubilantly, a woman in a fine dress was waiting at the top of the grand staircase for him. Her hair had at one time been a light auburn though now it had grown pale and her eyes held crow’s feet as she smiled, but the woman was just as pleased to see him. 

“Matthew, darling, you’re home! Did you have a good time in town?” she asked as she came down the stairs rather quickly, shooing the servants away and taking his coat and hat herself. Matt smiled, happy for the warm reception.

Matthew’s mother, Colleen, was truly a match for his father, although their interests in the sciences were miles apart. Colleen favored more biology and anthropology, addicted to expanding the limited knowledge about the natural world and its processes. Living things, like plants and animals, fascinated her even more and she kept a very well maintained garden on the back end of the house as well as a greenhouse where she bred new species of flowers. She was abrasive at times and ran her household with an eagle eye, which led to some friction between her and her daughter. 

“Town was fine, mother. I already had dinner at the pub so I guess I’ll go help father in the lab. He’s still there, right?” Matt spoke as his feet were already taking him to his father’s laboratory at the other end of the house. The interiors were mostly covered in handsome dark oak wood which Matt supposed was the epitome of high fashion although it made the house all the more darker and ominous in the short daylight hours of winter. It made having such a loving family all the more important to him, though. Colleen kept pace with her son, skirts swishing along the floors. 

“Yes, although he still has not had his dinner and neither has Katie! I swear, it’s bad enough that man taught you such poor manners, but to be teaching a young lady not to take supper or retire at a reasonable hour! He has no thought to how this will affect Katherine once she’s married?” Colleen loved to point out her husband’s shortcomings despite the fact that, in the summer months, she could be found outside tending to the azaleas well past eight in the evening if left to herself. Matt smiled to himself. Some things would never change. At the end of a long, wider hallway stood a large, heavy door made out of steel that did not match the rest of the house at all. With some effort, Matt pulled the door open to reveal a small staircase leading down to the manor house’s basement and the glow of light beyond that. Sam’s various experiments on his prototypes had to be kept down here because of the great secrecy his clients had sworn him to while he developed them and his own personal desire not to be interrupted. Once down the stairs, Matt and Colleen could hear two voices: one older and masculine, the other a younger girl’s voice answering until the missing two members of the Holt family could be seen. Samuel Holt stood in the center of the large stone room donned with a smock and rubber gloves as his top half was hidden beneath the curtain keeping his latest invention from view. Katherine, affectionately dubbed Katie by her family, stood nearby at the ready with Sam’s tools laid out on a trolley beside her. 

Katie tilted her head up at Matt and Colleen’s entrance. Her face brightened.

“Oh, good, you’re back, Matt! Father’s just about ready to test the final model!” she announced to them excitedly, pulling the smock she wore over her dress over her head and shedding her gloves as she made her way to the table that was also covered with a large cloth next to the big hulking mass that was “the machine.” Pulling the cloth back revealed a rather ghastly sight to anyone that wasn’t expecting it: a deceased bull terrier dog, laying on its side, pathetically small on the large steel gurney. Katie’s face dropped upon seeing the animal, her lips drawn into a line. Matt too felt those echoes of the hurt he had felt a week ago when their beloved family dog, Bae Bae, had finally passed away from her old age. Like any creature that provided warmth and comfort, her passing was not unexpected but still sent shocks of bereavement through their whole family, Katie especially. But Sam had made a promise to her that, if all went well this night, there would be no need to think sadly on Bae Bae again.

“Alright, Katie, attach the leads helmet to the subject’s head as best you can. It’ll be a little large on her but it should be flexible enough to work,” Sam instructed as he pulled his head and torso out from under the tarp. Adjusting his goggles, Sam Holt was in total focus as he handed his assistant a cloth to tie around her mouth and nose. Bae Bae’s body had been preserved in the manor’s deep freezer between two blocks of ice, but unfortunately the further attention the machine needed in order to work had taken longer than the few days required to stave off putrification of the dog’s body. Now, Bae Bae had patches of fur and skin swathed off and the bones were becoming more prominent as the eyes and ears sunk into the skull, yet their beloved pet was still recognizable enough. Matt could only hope, as he and his mother stood watching, that Bae Bae’s organs would handle the return of blood flow, especially the heart once it was jumpstarted. All three older Holts watched as Katie took the small headset device and unwound the wires that fused it to the machine as she attached each lead to the front and back of the dog’s skull. 

Even though she had the cloth protecting her senses from Bae Bae’s...less than desirable smell, Katie still managed a loud sneeze and gag once she completed her task. Shaking her head and backing away quickly, she quickly rejoined her brother and mother while Sam stepped back up to the machine. 

“Alright, everyone,” he said in his ‘scientific authority’ tone of voice, as Katie and Matt put it, “make sure that you put your goggles on, there’s going to be some intense light exposure from the electricity this machine generates. I’m going to count down from three and by the end of this, we will have Bae Bae back with us.” Matt and Katie had grown up with a father that had two loves: his work and his family. He had never been short or overly harsh with them as young children and, if anything, Colleen had been the scarier of the two to deal with when they were in trouble. But when it came to his work, both children agreed that Sam became a more intense, focused man. It was as if he had a horse’s blinders on and couldn’t see anything that might’ve been in his way but only the end of the finish line, his ultimate goal. If he was short or cruel to them in those times, it was always unintentional. Yet, in some nebulous way, Matt almost felt intimidated by his father in those moments. He couldn’t say the same for his sister; Katie always watched their father as if he had hung the moon and stars in the night sky. She watched him with such awe, even as a small child, that there was no possible way she could think of their father as anything less than something akin to a god creating ways to ease the suffering of the average man. No, Matt decided, glancing at his sister, it really was probably nothing at all to worry or fuss over. Just business.

Taking his hand upon the main lever, Sam began his countdown.

“Three...two….one!” he shouted, flipping the lever down until it came into the electrified switch with a loud sizzle and suddenly, the cavernous lab was engulfed in hot white-blue light. Matt could barely make sense of a room he had seen a dozen times anymore. Objects casted warped shadows that blinked rapidly in and out of existence, making them seem to move yet not. He could make out the shape of his father, still standing with one hand clenched on the lever, probably not daring to let go. From the table, a great horrid, unearthly sound came up and quickly echoed around the lab and engulfed Matt’s senses. It began as unintelligible gargling and in seconds grew in pitch until it was a shrill scream that would have resembled the baleful cry of a hound if he had not been so utterly frightened. Within an instant, however, Sam pulled the lever back up to its top cradle and the room’s lighting returned to a normal, golden glow. A completely unsettling silence also reigned, out of place in consideration to the chaos that had just occurred. 

Matt could hear nothing but the harsh, exhilarated breaths of his sister and mother beside him as well as his own heaving in his chest. Sam quickly yanked up his goggles from his eyes yet seemed glued to his spot. No one moved for the longest second. Then, walking in a clunky manner like his feet were held by cement blocks, Sam moved towards the static gurney. The lump underneath the covers did not so much as twitch. With great care that Matt didn’t know anyone could possess after that ordeal, Sam took the cloth tarp gently in his hand and pulled it back, achingly too slow. What lay underneath irrevocably turned the world upside down.

Bae Bae, the previously deceased corpse, was blinking her eyes ever so slowly and wiggling her four paws on the table, tiny huffing sounds coming from her throat audible now that the sheet had been removed. The dog was moving like a creature that had been asleep for a while, taking its time stretching and waking its body back up. Which was fitting, Matt decided, since father always liked to say how “sleep was just the brother of death.” 

“My God,” Colleen whispered. “She-she’s really…. awake!” Both her and Katherine immediately bolted from their spots next to Matthew and over to the dog, coming up just short of the table and both looking at Sam for the go ahead before they dared to touch her.

“She should be fine now, but take care to be gentle with her. Decomposition has probably eaten away at her strength and her constitution is very fragile now. A few days of good food and rest and she should be out hunting the birds again!” Sam seemed completely pleased, a contented smile pulling his trimmed beard up as he watched the girls fawn over a now panting Bae Bae. 

“She’s ok,” Katie warbled, tears in her eyes as she sniffled. Bae Bae has rolled over onto her belly now, pushing her snout into Katie’s delicate hands and enjoying her attentions, as if nothing so cataclysmic as death had even happened. Katie chuckled through her clogged nose, tears streaming down her face as the dog felt strong enough to reach up and lap at her face gently. Colleen turned to her husband, cradling his face with her hands.

“Oh, darling! I can’t believe it! You’ve done it! You’ve really done it!” she cried, with Sam finally lifting her up by the waist and spinning his wife around, hollering out his joy at success. Matt had never seen his parents act this way, like they were a young courting couple again. He, personally, was still on page one of trying to process a reanimated Bae Bae.

“Haha! My machine works! Do you hear me!? My machine works!!” Sam’s elated cry shocked Matt out of his reverie. His father had one hand bracing his body on the gurney next to the dog while the other was balled into a triumphant fist hanging in the air. Beside him, Katie was still enraptured with her once-lost companion although her joy was now focused on her father.

“Thank you, father! Oh, thank you for this!” she cried, coming around the edge of the table and throwing her arms around her father’s neck. Colleen, too, embraced him and the three held the hug, laughing and crying. And, at last, Matt smiled, genuinely and exhaled a relieved breath. Despite all the faith he had in his father’s abilities, he had truly, in his heart of hearts, doubted the newest undertaking that his father had first proposed: to restore dead organisms back to life. If death, he proposed, was a part of the life cycle and new life could be brought forth from existing life, why not, then, force that cycle to begin again from a vacant vessel that once held life anyway? Sam had not disclosed to Matt, though, what the army would want with such a device when usually men like that were more interested in machines designed to take more life away, but he didn’t ponder on it too long. 

Sam had made a vow to his family that he would never use his great mind to build weapons that would destroy any man but only to aid and soften the blow as best he could. And this, Matt supposed, was the best way to honor that vow. Now families would not be held to the mercy of death’s iron grip on loved ones that they relied on and its indiscriminate prowling for them. That meant there would be no more orphans or widows and the lame would always have someone to look after them. Letting his smile grow wider, Matt fully embraced what the dog happily wagging her tail on the table meant as he strode to complete the embrace of his family. 

Truly, as his last thought on the matter was, his father had conquered death. Who could possibly take that away from them?


	2. It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back! Thanks for all the love on the first chapter, and for coming back for more!
> 
> I won't keep you, hope you enjoy!

It was a week before the next strange occurrence took place.

Autumn was a festive and active time for the citizens in Plahttown. With the harvesting done, vendors lined the streets with their creaky wagons filled with lovely orange pumpkins and pale yellow squash. Corn in their dry husks sat in perfect rows in their wooden boxes, all for the casual consumer to consider. It was a shopping day for most people and the raucous sounds of their barking was unceasing in the crisp, cold air. 

It was also a rare day for Sam to be seen milling among the people, able to enjoy some free time now that his latest project was finished. Katie had decided to accompany him, pleased that her father’s air was lighter. Dressed in their finest going out clothes, father and daughter walked arm in arm along the street, Sam’s cane clicking against the stone and Katie’s skirts swishing to and fro. 

During one step, Katie tripped over her long skirt and muttered a curse under her breath. Oh, how she hated these infernal things! How was it possible that she was sweltering in November if not for the piles upon piles of unnecessary fabric!?

Sam looked down at her when he felt the tug on his arm. 

“Katie, please, I know it’s a bit hard for you but please try to walk like a lady,” Sam implored his only daughter. Katie scowled childishly at that, but said nothing. Sam was very well aware of how unorthodox Katie was, but seeing as most of her upbringing was by his doing, he didn’t feel right complaining about it now. Katherine, from the time she was a tiny tot on his knee, had always been drawn to her parents’ interests and often Sam would look over his shoulder to see a pair of lovely golden-brown eyes watching him from the workbench over the years and she was often found reading the giant dusty tomes with her long hair a tangled mess and her dress dirty from climbing trees. Colleen had tried many times to encourage her daughter to join her in the garden or to take up a more ladylike pastime like embroidery or painting yet her daughter sloughed through it with much fussing until she inevitably gave up. 

“I’m sure I would make a little device that would hold up your skirts as you walk. I’ll begin the blueprints once we get home!” Sam smiled and winked at his daughter, attempting to lighten the mood. At those words, Katie giggled. 

“Father, you would put every seamstress out of business if you did that! Although, knowing how gaudy your wearable inventions are, maybe they’re safe from you yet…” Sam laughed at that, though Katie had a point. He had once tried to invent a softer girdle for Colleen when she was pregnant with Matt so that it would provide support to her baby bump; in reality, he had invented the world’s first fat suit by accident and almost didn’t live to see his son’s birth after that.

Indeed, at home, the Holts enjoyed their solitude with each other and their hobbies and interests. In town, unfortunately, they were reminded that their dynamic was the exception to the rule. 

Vendors and customers alike dropped their happy expressions at the sight of the Holt man and his girl when they walked past, no matter how fine their clothing. Sam Holt knew he was an enigma, truly. Every so often, months apart, he would appear from the manor house outside of town, driving his own wagon with a lump underneath a tarp behind him rather than a servant and making off for the south in the direction of the capital. The townsfolk didn’t really know (or care to askknow) any of the details about Dr. Holt, other than he was an inventor that sold his wares to high profile customers. In truth, the majority of the community could not simply make up their minds about the Holt family (as far as he could tell through their hushed whispers) and, therefore, chose to think rather suspiciously of their uncanny high estate.

As they walked, the sun beaming high, a tall, well-built man in a dark cloak with his brim pulled low over his eyes approached them. Katie couldn’t see his eyes, only the peppered quality of his beard and immediately gripped Sam’s arm a bit tighter, the muscles in her stomach squeezing hard. She hoped beyond hope that the stranger was only passing them by as her lungs constricted. Sam, for his part, kept his eyes focused and steely as the man stopped in front of them, ultimately, bowing low.

“Am I correct in identifying you as the renowned Doctor Samuel Holt?” the man inquired as he tipped his hat. His eyes were intense, a steely blue gray and never once did they roam over to Katie. His mouth also remained neutral despite his amicable tone. 

“That would depend on who is inquiring.” Sam’s voice was still level. The man in black did not back down.

“I represent a very affluent clientele that has seen one of your inventions in a trade show in the capital. He was quite impressed with a device that, I believe, could regenerate blood near instantly from any type of DNA? Yes, I imagine that will be quite useful for the military’s next endeavor; patching up dying boys and sending them back into the fray for much longer than they ever could normally!” The tall man laughed to himself, caught up in his tale. “My information has led me to believe that you are about to sell yet another world shattering invention that will, no doubt, save thousands of lives, correct? My client is prepared to pay any price to purchase such an awe-inspiring invention from you.”

Worried lines formed on Sam’s forehead, his mouth pursed, letting Katie know he digested the stranger’s words. For her part, Katie felt an icy rush beginning in her legs and travel up to her neck and arms with this new information. There was no way anyone could know of her father’s experiments. The silence dragged on uncomfortably long. The sounds of the busy street only served as an anxiety now, pressing down on the pair as the man awaited an answer. Could it be, Katie thought in a panic, that he’s actually considering it!? 

Katie was about to answer the man herself abrasively before Sam replied, “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know where you obtained your information from, but any and all inventions I happen to produce are for government or military use only. I have a contract with them, you see, that whatever I sell them is to be used humanely. I could not, in good conscience, sell to any private buyer. Good day.”

Moving with a smooth gate around the dumbfounded man, Sam led Katie away from the scene. No one around them seemed to have noticed the encounter, other than the occasional pair of mildly curious eyes. Katie managed one glance over her shoulder at the tall man. He had the darkest scowl on his wide face, made darker by the shadows across his face. Katie tripped again, breaking her gaze, as her father practically slung her along the street. They cut corners often and took back alleys so many times she was practically dizzy with it all. But her mind was sharp the way all Holts’ were and she knew that anyone inquiring about her father’s top secret invention were to be regarded with absolute suspicion. 

No ordinary man, her father told her when she first began to spectate his experiments at age fourteen, would have any way to know about what we do in this room. If there ever was such a person, I would consider myself in grave danger. Those words now reverberated in Katie’s ears, the stiff icy sensation still present despite their movement.

When her throat became unstuck, Katie found her voice, “Father, how could he have known?” Sam, relaxed his back and arms, no longer squeezing Katie’s arm quite so tightly as they walked. He looked down at her, his glasses glinting in the autumn sun. 

“I-I’m sure that he’s a local vagabond that made up that story about representing a patron and he saw the trade shows himself. I wouldn’t be too worried, dear.” Yet his daughter’s face stayed rigid as she observed him, clearly unimpressed with the answer. The girl’s fashionable bonnet, tied with a satin ribbon of bright green, obscured her hair and the top half of her face as her lovely eyes did not move from his. For a moment, Sam noted, the shadows warped Katie’s eyes, making them look sunken in. The way the cadavers at school had looked when he had gone to the university’s operating theatre to observe dissections as a school lad, he realized. Yet the moment was fleeting and when his daughter turned her face away, Sam’s thought was carried away by the wind. 

“Let’s not talk of this anymore, alright, dear? No need to worry your mother with this, as unsettling as it was. I promise you, nothing will come of this.”

Father and daughter took up their walk again, at a more leisurely pace, back towards home and without any fresh food from the market.

The last thought Katherine Holt had was the realization that the man in black had never given them his name nor his patron’s. 

~~~~~~~~~~ 

Night had settled firmly over the land when it happened. 

With the unbridled joy of having Bae Bae alive and happily slobbering on their arms still fresh, the Holt clan took their supper together and all turned in not long after. The reanimated dog would sleep with Katie, as was her custom when she was still living, and the girl cheerfully carried the dog off to her room as if nothing had ever changed. Colleen and Sam retired not long after, leaving Matthew awake with only his thoughts as a nightcap. He laid up in his bed, the thick four poster made of dark wood being illuminated by an incoming lightning storm every few minutes. Sleep eluded him, running hand in hand with the unsettling knowledge that an undead dog was still sleeping peacefully with his sister in the other room. 

The young man found his bed suddenly uncomfortable-too hard on his left side yet too soft on his back. The lightning was too bright. That owl’s call seemed awfully close to the house. 

The thunder rumbled louder and louder as the hours came and went. 

He would never admit it, but that dog’s howl that fateful night had disturbed him deeply and equally so that no one else had made note of it, either. Bae Bae’s scream had sounded like a hell hound, if Matthew believed in such things, that were said to bay at the moon in the dead of night. They also foretold of death and destruction. He rolled over onto his back again, his shoulder blades immediately aching. 

He let out a long suffering sigh. 

But those are only fables. I’ll admit it’s uncanny but Bae Bae definitely isn’t a hell hound; I’m sure I’d yell like that if my eternal rest was disturbed, too, Matt thought as he chuckled and shut his eyes and focused on his breathing, hoping to at least fall asleep before dawn. Not likely, though, with the lightning storm in full effect outside his window, shaking the house now with it’s rattling booms and streaks of light. This new arrangement with the dog was just taking longer than he thought to get used to. He had spent most of the week sleepless and his days were groggy as a result. If he could just get a few solid hours of sleep, he believed, his thoughts surrounding the shift in family dynamics would finally settle and he could be at peace like everyone else. Matt tried to sink into his sheets. The lightning flared up again outside.

Suddenly, the loudest, most earth shattering crash Matt had ever heard ripped throughout the house. It was so loud that everything in his bedroom began to vibrate and shake, clinking against each other while even the floorboards rattled. 

His eyes snapped open. That was no thunder clap. 

Immediately Matt leapt out of bed, only to be caught on the foot by his sheets, sending him toppling over the bed and onto the floor in a heap. Matt wasn’t sure if it was his body weight hitting the floor or the crashing sound from downstairs, but he could feel the percussive force move through his bones. From the hallway, doors were slamming open and he heard the cries of his mother and sister and shouts from his father. So it hadn’t been a hallucination induced by his insomnia. Matt swallowed the increasing dread back down in his throat. 

Untangling himself as quick as he could, Matt ran to the door and wrenched it open, just in time to see Katie sprinting past him with her white nightdress and long hair flowing behind her, making her look like a specter, if specters could run noisily on wooden floors. As if an unseen force had pushed him none too gently in the back, Matt threw his feet out and chased after his family. There was so much noise that he could not discern what was the storm outside, the as of yet still unidentified crash, and his father’s almost manic screaming in his adrenaline fueled race. He only knew it was nothing good. 

The sounds now had not ceased and, in fact, continued to reverberate throughout the entire manor. At one point, as Matt practically flung himself down the stairs, it felt like the house was about to come crashing down over their heads. 

As he chased after his family, his father ahead running like his life depended on it, Matt slowly discerned in the panic and adrenaline that the source of the earth turning itself inside out was coming from down in the basement - where his father’s machine was. This revelation only forced Matt’s feet to pound harder, cursing the fact that the bedrooms were on the opposite end of the house. The pieces were starting to come together in his mind. This was a break-in and the prize was the next installment in the Holt’s financial stability. Of course. 

Upon coming to the large steel door, Matt saw his father struggling to open it in his sweaty palms, until his mother caught up with him and, placing her hands over his quickly, helped him wrench the door open. 

A thick cloud of dust immediately engulfed them, the smell of gunpowder heavy in it. As Katie and Matt caught up with their parents halfway down the staircase to the basement, Matt registered at the back of his mind that the ruckus was now...farther away? The stairs underneath him were no longer shaking and neither was the foundation as he reached the bottom. As the children looked up, they were met with the worst case scenario possible through the dust and debris. 

Almost half of the wall in the large basement room had been removed, with explosives Matt now concluded which accounted for the gunpowder smell, and the remaining stone and wood bits were crumbling onto the floor. The west side of the basement was partially exposed to the ground level and the earth had also been blown away, resulting in an incline from the floor of the basement up to the grass of the lawn beyond. Rain came down in sheets, transforming the earth into a muddy landslide. Yet the rain could not erase all the wagon tracks that now shoved itself into their faces, indicating only one thing: the machine, the incredible machine and source of pride for Samuel Holt, had been stolen. 

In nothing but his bedclothes and his fine slippers, Sam Holt roared as he stumbled over the debris hastily, trying with all his might to reach the house’s exit wound. He picked up small chunks of rock as he did, flinging them out in the direction the thieves had made off with his invention, cursing their names to high heavens. Bae Bae ran past him, barking and growling her head off at the hole in the wall, as if it would have intimidated the thieves into bringing their stolen property back. 

“Damn them!! They’ve stolen it, lousy low-life scum! My work!! ALL MY WORK!!!!” he screamed, his anguish echoing off the stone. It broke Matt’s heart seeing his father like this, trying to comprehend how unhinged Sam sounded as he attempted to scramble up the muddy incline, only to be pelted with rain and to slip and come crashing to his knees in the mud. 

The lightning flashed and the thunder rumbled almost a second behind, indicating that the storm was directly over their heads now. Colleen, picking up the long satin skirt of her nightgown, treaded as quickly and carefully as she could around the fallen beams and bits of mortar and stone to reach her howling husband. Dropping to her knees, she flung one arm around his heaving back and the other under him to brace him. Matthew almost could not get a handle on his breathing, taking in the sheer amount of damage the lab had been reduced to. Beside him, Katie was sobbing into her hands. Swallowing hard, Matt put his arms around her petite shoulders.

“Don’t worry, Pidge. We’ll get it back. It’ll be alright.” But the young man hardly had any faith in the words coming out of his mouth as he spoke them. It was all he could do to hold himself together more than extend comfort and support to his sister. Katie was only a babe when Sam had moved the family into this manor but Matt remembered it clearly. It had marked the end to their suffering, as Sam put it. His contracts with the government and the military had come through, complete with housing beyond any means the Holts could’ve had on their own. Before that it had been scraping by, watering down their stew, and tax collectors knocking on their door. But their comfort was threadbare; remaining so only as long as Sam continued to invent and patent new technology. 

Without the invention, they could not go on as they were, Matt finally realized. They would lose everything. As the children looked on, Colleen managed to help Sam to stand, the couple now thoroughly soaked and dirty from the mud. Even over the raucous noise of the storm, Matthew could still hear his father’s sobs. 

That night, the storm refused to cease until nearly dawn and even then, the sun did not shine that day. Unfortunately for Matthew Holt, he did not fully realize just how right he had been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, a big shoutout to the Conservatory discord for such fun headcanon-ing and brainstorming! I love it all!
> 
> And big thanks to Rueitae for beta-ing!


	3. Dog Days are Over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katie has made up her mind and makes tracks while it is definitely not Matt's finest hour....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, back for more, huh? Hope you like angst and terror!  
We're starting to ramp up, so let's get this show rolling!

The streets were completely empty once it was well and truly dark. The nice thing about winter, Katie thought briefly as she slipped out of a door, was that darkness fell earlier. She was obscured by it and her purpose could not be seen in the sun. Pulling one of Matt’s borrowed coats further up her neck and cupping her face with the scarf at the same time, Katie ran quickly from the shop she had just vacated down the street towards the village gate. The moon’s light was not as bright this night, on account of it waning into only a fingernail of light, yet her shadow still warped and elongated along the walls of nearby buildings as she ran. Tonight was just like any other night for the denizens of the village that weren’t aware of her purpose: the pub Matt frequented was aglow and raucous in the still night air, but the muffled ruckus was quickly carried away by the wind whistling past her ears.

Closer now. The hard heels of her boots sounded more like the hoofbeats of a trotting horse. Further down the cobble road, the girl could now plainly see the main gate that warded the village off from the surrounding wood and wilderness. It was guarded at all hours, day or night, by a small platoon of (admittedly amateurish) guards. That didn’t matter to Katie anymore, though. She had what she needed, clutched tightly in her sweaty fists, and the name and address written upon the scrap of paper was already burned in her mind. She needed now only to be as quiet and stealthy as possible to escape the gate and make it to the dense woods just beyond the wall. She had to, she could not doubt herself anymore.

The guardshouse was miniscule, more of a lean-to one would build for livestock than to house the guard on duty. A small gas lantern gleamed between the boards and casted long rays of light. Before Katie came upon these beams, she quickly ducked into the space between to nearby houses, immersing herself in the inky shadow and waiting for her next move to present itself. As she had calculated the night before, the guards changed rotations every four hours and were about to repeat their ceremony, if the second bobbing lamp coming up along the wall was any indication. Quickly, Katie removed her boots and darted out from the obscured alleyway and towards the large yawning portal, praying that she would hear no shouts. 

In only a few seconds, the small young woman was out of sight of the guard’s station and therefore his line of sight, but she was not completely outside of surveillance. The village gateway had no actual portcullis with which to bring down, therefore allowing a second group of guards to patrol the top of the wall in a continuous circuit. The gateway was flanked by two large cylindrical towers and it was here in the shadow of one of them and the flat wall beside that Katie hunkered down to wait for the roving guard to pass her by. Katie’s breathing was labored as she waited, by both her sprint and the anxiety of being caught before her mission could be completed. She could see the guard’s torch moving slowly from the far left above her and while she rationally decided when to make her final sprint, it was proving difficult to convince her coiled muscles to wait.

A minute went by agonizingly slowly. There in the stillness of the night, Katie quickly found that she could hear the distinct footsteps of the guard’s boots reverberating through the stone and counted their cadence as a means of distraction. While she kept her ears pricked on the sound of the guards, Katie quickly worked her shoes back on her feet. The road outside of the village was a simple country lane, packed dirt, and her boot soles would be fairly quiet until the trees could conceal her. After what seemed like an eternity counted by only her reverberating heartbeat, Katie saw the guard pass her by undetected and she made a break for the treeline. 

  
  


The dirt road split off into a three pronged fork from the entrance to the village, the path intercepted right out of the gate by a secondary road running parallel along the wall while the main path from the gate led due north into the forest. As Katie ran, dark cloak and borrowed boots and trousers now being ripped up by low bushes and other fauna, she dared not go towards the country road proper just yet. She worried that any late night traveler in their buggy may come upon her; disguised as she was, a short, young person all alone in the forest at night would be suspicious to any well-to-do villager. 

  
  


Whatever light the wall's guards and the moon had given her was now completely gone and only the barest hint of a glow was available for Katie's eyes to adjust to as she allowed her pace to slow. It was only when she diverted her direction slightly to the right and came up alongside the road again did she slow to a stop, if only to catch her breath. The night had been filled with more exhilaration than she had had in quite a long while. Swallowing thickly and heaving her breath in and out through her mouth, Katie reached into an inside pocket of the traveling cloak and fished out the piece of paper with the address and name again. 

  
  


Holding it up closer to her face, she thought about the circumstances that forced her to perform such a daring "escape."

  
  


_ It had only been a day since the incident. Her father was still reeling from the shock of having his machine stolen and, after he had collapsed on the workroom floor wet and exhausted from screaming, her mother had cleaned him up and taken her husband to bed. He had not moved from it since. The family had stayed awake that terrible night, fearful of both the break-in and its repercussions, but also the unknown factor of whether or not the house was now unsound. At any moment, Katie thought, this house could groan again and could collapse down over our heads. Not that it matters. Everything's lost... _

  
  


_ When dawn broke over the land, the storm had long since been cleared from the sky and the pale light of the rising sun quickly became stronger and more powerful by the hour. The three remaining Holts had spent the rest of the night sitting in the parlor. Matthew had drawn up a fire while Colleen sat on the settee by the bay windows, staring off into the distance.  _

  
  


_ "Probably shock," Matt had whispered to her, handing her a glass of warm cider he had fetched from the larder. The drink warmed her bones and little by little did somehow unwind the horrid knot of anguish that had been tied in her chest once the fallout had calmed into an almost worse silence, once Sam had passed out. Colleen had not accepted any of the drink her son had offered her and seemed more like a seated statue for how little she had moved.  _

  
  


_ Matthew, for his part, had been leaning against the fireplace's mantel, staring into it's brilliant blaze and occasionally getting out his pocket watch to check the time. He did not move either.  _

  
  


_ As the sun rose, gently at first but soon erupting over the horizon in all its brilliance, Katie felt her mind begin to piece together a solution to this unwanted dilemma. It was only her way; she couldn't bare to be idle, especially in the face of something so dire as this, and the clarity dawn brought also fortified her new plan. She had let precious hours go by without any action and her family could not afford any more. With that, Katie rose, heading towards her bedroom to change into the clothes she would need. Her boots had been collecting dust in the wardrobe for too long. _

  
  


The very same boots she had been wearing for almost thirty hours now. The forest, Katie casually pondered, was not all that bad once one got used to it. Okay, so she really couldn't see herself building a summer home here or anything, but there was something about the still night air that transformed this large grove of pine trees that was lovely in its foreign way. Plus, now that her eyes had become adjusted to the dim light, she could just make out the endless blanket of stars peeking through the tops of the trees high over her head as she walked along. 

  
  


Her destination was quite far out, but Katie had calculated (by what poor cartography she could find of the local area) that she'd arrive in about twenty minutes. It had been ten when she had left the manor and with any luck she would be home well before daybreak. For a long while the girl only heard a few noises as she walked. She kept her guard up of any oncoming travelers, but in the darkness her only companions became her thoughts and the various sounds of the nocturnal life around her. 

  
  


It was childish, of course, to be afraid of such things. And Katie was not a child anymore. She could not afford to be. Clenching her fists, she walked on, leaning into her strides harder than intended. The main event of her plan had not come to fruition, yet it boggled her with how much resistance and sneaking she had had to do to get even this far. 

  
  


_ It was not the most optimal time for this. If Katie had the luxury of time she would've picked twilight, when the guards of the gate would've been distracted elsewhere by the decommissioning of the day guard. But she would make do. _

  
  


_ The streets had been filled with people, typically of high noon, and the sun's angle created distorted shadows with which Katie had hid in before she slipped into the guardhouse and through it's access door to the tower. High above the swirling stone steps was the captain of the guard's office, and while he (blessedly) was not present in it, Katie could not waste any time before he came back. Trying desperately to keep her breath from wheezing out, her nimble small hands made quick work of the captain's desk, pulling out drawers and searching for one particular file.  _

  
  


_ Every person, resident or alien, that passed through the village gate was recorded with their name, address of origin, what business they had in Plahttown and how long they intended to stay. The flow of traffic had to do this both upon entering the village and, upon exiting, the guard on duty would officially stamp their paper and keep it for posterity. If the suspicious man that had approached her and her father the day prior had been the culprit in the abduction of the machine, as Katie strongly suspected, then his name would be somewhere in the day's files.  _

  
  


_ Eyes tunneling, she finally found the file printed with the day in question and quickly opened it. That day had seen only twelve people enter the gate, mostly the standard fare of traders but one paper in particular caught her eye. _

  
  


_ "There you are," she murmured, coming across a paper with no red waxy exit stamp. Shaking away the dust from the little room, Katie read over the name Enoch Sendak and an address for a manorhouse far outside of this village. Unknowingly, she let out a gasp of air from the relief of it all. She had found the horrid cretin responsible for the crime against her family.  _

  
  


_ Tucking the paper away into her trouser pocket, the girl was suddenly seized by a large arm, screaming out in surprise. Whipping her head around, she came face to face with Captain Iverson's one mean eye, beady and glaring at her.  _

  
  


_ "Well, well, what have we here?" _

  
  


Iverson had been a fool not to go through her pockets, Katie thought as she stroked the grainy texture of the paper. Her disguise of Matt's hand-me-down shirt and breeches had done well for her, as they always had. Yet it didn't matter a wink once Iverson reached down and pulled the cap from her head, letting her long auburn hair cascade back down her shoulders, exposing both her gender as well as her identity. Everyone was aware of Dr. Holt's lovely daughter, especially the men in charge of the citizens' safety.

Yet perhaps her real identity had worked to her advantage, in convincing Iverson that such a delicate girl as her (disguised though she was) would have no real agenda in his office. Clearly, she was there on a dare or as a prank. He tossed her out back into the streets none too gently, though, with a warning that he would personally talk to her parents if he ever caught her in the tower again. Her scowl might have been real at the time, but it concealed her absolute joy at keeping the paper to her family's vengeance beautifully.

The air was getting colder, if that were even possible. Or perhaps the heat Katie had produced from her heavy jaunt was only now escaping her coat into the atmosphere. Either way, she clutched the heavy wool closer around her neck and breathed into her exposed fingers to warm them up.

She had been walking with only the white noise of the forest for so long, she almost didn't catch on to the sound of hoofbeats and clattering wagon wheels drawing closer. Alarmed, Katie dove almost comically into the low-lying ferns by the road as a first instinct and then, realizing that they would not hide her well at all, crawled on hands and knees for a neighboring tree. Behind its trunk and sitting between two bulbous roots Katie once again waited, listening to the sound of a wagon drawing closer along the road. But oddly, the cadence of the horse's hoofbeats became slower the nearer it drew to her, which seized a suddenly panic in her chest.

Surely no one could actually see her behind this tree?

_ Unless it is the phantom coach,  _ a devious thought sprang up in her mind, a childhood fear long since buried by time now revitalized by the dark forest around her. _ Oh yes, it is the phantom coach here to spirit you away! Driven by death himself... _

Katie cupped her hand over her mouth to stifle her breathing. No, no, that was absolutely impossible...

The horse stopped, and the wagon creaked as it did so, just on the other side of her hiding tree. A voice rang out in the darkness, cutting through the night's stillness as well as Katie's irrational panic.

"Pidge! Katie! I know you're out here!" her brother, Matthew, called out to her. The brief moment of relief she felt that it was not Death but rather her brother of flesh and bone quickly evaporated upon the horror now that Matt had discovered her whereabouts.

"Please, Katie! You need to come home! Mother woke up from a nightmare and found you missing from your bed! She woke me up and sent me to fetch you, please don't cause her or Father any more grief!" he called out again. Drat, Katie thought; she thought she had given her three family members enough of the wine in the cellar to put them to bed early. Matthew never took much convincing to have a drink, but her mother was frugal. While she could not see his face, the girl heard her brother's desperation. He sounded as though he would begin to sob at any moment if she did not reveal herself. She almost did.

Standing up, Katie was temporarily blinded by the two lanterns glowing on either side of the wagon, winking merrily at her after so long in the natural darkness as she poked her head out from behind the tree. It took all her conscious will to force her legs to back up a step and mash herself back into hiding against the tree.. For the brief moment of vision, she saw Matt's face underneath his hat dropped in stony absolution, dead set on finding her and taking her back to that dark manor house now filled with trauma.

"Pidge! Please! You’ve got to come home!" he called again and the girl could barely hide the jolt of longing she felt in her chest to join him.  _ Please, Matt, go home and wait for me. I’ll make this better, I can fix this... _

"Katie, I know what you're doing out here. You think you're doing the right thing by trying to find the thieves and get Father's machine back but I promise you, this is a fool's errand!" Matt gripped the reins tighter in his gloved hands, she could hear the leather squawking. "You're too smart for your own good, you know that? I'm sure you already know their whereabouts by now, otherwise you wouldn't be out here aimlessly trying to find them. But let me get it through your thick head now: it is dangerous and you cannot expect to retake the machine without invoking their wrath alone."

Silence rang out after this long declaration. Katie grit her teeth and squeezed her fingers into her palms, nails digging into the skin. While her brother could hold his liquor fairly well, his voice warbled despite the clarity of his words. If she could just manage to hold still for a bit longer, he would move on and look for her elsewhere. 

_ It’s too late, my mission stops for nothing now... _

Matthew squinted in the blinding light of the lanterns against the darkness. Ever since he had been woken by his panicking mother he had felt hazy, like everything was a dream. His sister, for all her wit and courage, could not seriously be so stupid to do this. By nature, Matt took after their father more and was not a confrontational person, even intoxicated. But only now, with such a disaster hanging over their heads, did he deem it finally appropriate to lay into his kid sister, granted she was nearby as he suspected. 

But the cursed wine she had simperingly offered him as well as their parents still swirled in his gut and made his head feel like a balloon encased inside his skull. He was sure that if he got off of this wagon, he would not get back on without spooking the horse. Then he would be just as lost as the charge he was sent to find. So, he did the only thing he could think of and appealed to her as rationally as he could manage.

_ Please _ , he mentally prayed,  _ don't be stubborn for once in your life! You’ve got to meet me halfway, Pidge... _

When the ambient silent of the forest continued on for too long, Matthew sighed in frustration and cracked the reins sharply and Old Beezer, the family workhorse, nickered and pushed forward, lugging the cart with it. Turning his head to watch the trees swirl until his neck could not twist anymore, Matt felt the increasing weight of his unintended decision press in on his chest. Was he really giving up? Yet he could not find the energy in him to care quite as much as the hours had trickled by. Once the horse, by instinct, had led him back to the village gate, he found a familiar form static against the stone wall. His heart alighted at the sight of Nessa, his (still secret) sweetheart seemingly waiting there to greet him. It had been all too easy for her to tempt him into a late night boozy liaison while he unloaded all the cares he could remember upon her lovely, soft shoulders until the pub’s clock rung out and the proprietor kicked them out. 

Nessa, for her part, seemed to take the news of her beau’s impending familial financial ruin rather...enthusiastically and stroked his biceps and back languidly as she had offered him another drink. Somewhere along the way, unaware to Matt, the urging concept that his sister was missing and he was to bring her back slipped from his mind and evaporated into the atmosphere while he downed another shot. Afterwards, Matthew bid his lover goodnight with a sloppy kiss on her cheek and he led the horse and wagon back up the hill to the manor house and promptly passed out once he fell upon his bed, all his swirling fuzzy thoughts lost to the darkness. 

Soberingly in the pale light of that next morning, it was revealed that Katie's bed remained empty and unslept in. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, a big BIIIIIIG thank you to the Conservatory discord and to lovely Rueitae for beta-ing as well as letting me bounce ideas off of her! Y'all don't even know how grateful I am to have listening ears to my little fic lol


	4. Desperate Times Call for

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooooo...it was never my intention to leave this fic high and dry until spring! But with me being me, it was bound to happen. But no more, I say! I want to finish this fic by the end of the year, fingers crossed! Thank you to everyone that's stuck with me, and to AnchoredTether for betaing this chapter!

_Around 7:30 in the morning of November 12th, the body of Katherine Holt was found in a ditch along a side road that ran between the wall of the village and the treeline of the forest. She was only eighteen. The cause of death, upon being examined by the village coroner, seems to be that she was walking home the night before when a hit and run with an unknown carriage must have occurred, slamming into her left side, knocking her down, and then bashing the back of her head in with the back wheel as it drove away. She bled out and remained alive for at least another thirty minutes, laying there in assumed agony, before succumbing to the trauma, blood loss, and hypothermia. Her body was found by the apprentice to the dairy farmer, delivering the daily milk into town early that morning. She is survived by her father, the esteemed inventor and celebrated scientist Samuel Holt, her mother, the brilliant and dedicated botanist Colleen Holt, and her elder brother, apprentice to their father and budding scientist in his own right, Matthew Holt. She was unmarried. What a horrid tragedy, the likes this community has ever or will ever see again, God willing. May her family find their peace as they lay their only daughter to rest long before her time._

Below that newspaper’s headline was the information for Katherine’s wake and funeral, to be conducted at the Holt manorhouse that Friday afternoon. The front rooms were awash with candlelight and dressed with so many floral arrangements that it now resembled Colleen’s hot house.

But now that light had gone dim, the mourners long gone and the house as silent as the grave if not for the stabilizing sound of the rain outside, as Matt observed from his place by the parlor window. Despite what a reclusive eccentric Samuel could be, a surprising amount of people had poured onto their land from the village in the valley below. They came in a great swarm of black which Matthew likened to when he was young and watched a hoard of flies devour a dead dog he had passed by on the side of the road. Only now they were coming to devour… He shook his head to banish the thought. He’d had enough of such intrusive thoughts to last him a lifetime in only forty eight hours.

Distraught could not begin to describe the Holt family. Nothing so blase as that could accurately describe the depths of their grief. From that morning when Matthew had discovered Katie’s bed empty and not slept in, to the frantic search party the three remaining Holts had conducted of the manor grounds, to the utterly earth shattering news that the constable brought with him when he knocked on the big oak door by ten o’clock. Matt figured that the breath in his lungs had gone stale, he couldn’t seem to draw in fresh air anymore. Or maybe his ribs had collapsed on themselves and his heart was only beating amongst the debris, an echo chamber of nothingness. Colleen, in her oversized, inky skirts, staked claim upon the velvet fainting couch since that morning and still had not moved, not uttered one single word. He could see that her trembling had not ceased nor her bone white knuckled grip on what looked to be an oversized silk handkerchief. Her pale and wane face seemed to be frozen, her gaze a thousand miles off and her eyes swollen with tears. _Shock_, Matthew’s clinical brain supplied him.

Sam had moved closer to the hearth and its roaring fire, a warm glow casting upon his dense clothing and reflecting off of his glasses in such a way that obscured his eyes. While his wife was mute, he had the horrid duty of receiving their mourners and taking care of the funeral and burial arrangements. Now that all was settled, he too had sunk into a silence that was arguably worse than the disquieting atmosphere that had sunk into the very mortar and beams of the house itself. Matthew turned his head to its epicenter.

His little sister was lovely (she had always been, to him), the only one of them not dressed in black but a salmon pink satin day dress with puffed sleeves that hung low on her shoulders. The mortician had suggested that Katie should wear one of her bonnets, since nothing could really be done about the giant gaping hole in the back of her head where her skull was crushed. He received no objections (the Holts were incapable of one intelligible word since that morning). Her coffin lining was all pure white satin (satin, satin, always satin) and the girl’s body was framed with tiny white flowers until it looked as if she were laying in a spring field of them. Another suggestion by the mortician: an abundance of flowers to hide the mangled parts of her body and white to reflect the purity of one taken too soon. Matt didn’t know if the sound that came out of his throat at that thought sounded manic or not, imagining his fiery little sister that would curse his name to high heavens as well as his best mates could ever be called pure. Her hands clasped together over the bottom of her ribs and Katie truly did look like she were only asleep, although Matt would only ever accept that if it were in her bed, in her nightdress, and with drool coming down the side of her mouth and limbs splayed wide. Her skin had taken on a gray tint due to the beginning stages of decomposition, another giveaway to the grisly truth.

Matt adjusted his glasses as he straightened back up, turning his attention away from his little sister in her bed of pine towards his parents. His mother started her silent sobbing again, the curiously large hanky pressed to her face as her shoulders and back gave violent little jerks. Samuel’s grip had gone just as rigid on the alabaster mantel. There was a tension in the air that felt like a drawn bow about to snap, an oncoming wave of fresh grief and remorse that Matt couldn’t see yet he felt with every fiber of his being. At the first rolling rumble of thunder far off in the distance, it finally snapped. Samuel took one of the porcelain figurines near his hand and smashed it back down onto the mantle, shattering it into hundreds of sharp pieces just as the lightning flared up outside, illuminating the rage upon his face.

“This is all my fault!” he cried. “I was too lenient with her, I indulged her too much! What kind of father am I to let my child go wandering the woods at any hour!? No matter the circumstances!”

He alternated beating one fist against the wall and the other covering his face as all his intelligible words dissolved into gross sobbing. From her place on the couch, Colleen’s quiet sobs finally had vocalization. Matthew ran to his father, taking him by the shoulders.

“No, father, the fault is with me! All to do with me! I-I was a fool, I had her! She promised to come home and what did I do? I got drunk instead! I left her! My sister is dead because of _me_!”

The young man collapsed, his arms sinking down to his father’s waist as his knees hit the wood flooring, the wailing finally his own, and quite loud. Distantly, he felt his father bend slightly down towards him, his hands smoothing across his back. Colleen hastened to them, dropping to her knees as well in front of her son and embracing him with an unexpected strength. Through the blurry tears, Matt could now see that what he had thought was an odd, oversized handkerchief was truly a snow white baby blanket with a lace border. It did nothing but amplify the wave of despair that crashed over him. Eventually, Matthew’s meager strength gave out and he released his father’s legs, letting Colleen take his weight and better support him as she rocked him gently upon the floor. Sam did not move, rooted to his spot as he watched his wife and son hold one another, completely broken and awash in their devastation. For some inane reason, for a brief flickering moment, Sam was worried that all this noise would disturb poor Katie, reposing not far away from them. The sky beyond the cranberry curtains was now well and truly obscured with rain as it pelted against the diamond-paned windows.

Despite those damned, cursed flowers being in the way, he could still see the small bump of his daughter’s nose and the brim of her bonnet peeking out from the side of the coffin. A darling little nose, one that he had been forced to tap often when his little love would crawl into his lap late at night when she should have been tucked up in bed, or when he helped her with her arithmetic because her governess could not, and it became apparent that she had faked misunderstanding in order to garner his attention.

His girl was cheeky, spirited, and far too intelligent to ever listen to him nor anyone else. In all honesty he should’ve expected her to go out that night, trying to reclaim the Holt’s dignity, but never in a million years did he think that this would ever happen and a freak accident, no less. Not to his precious one. His only daughter. His tiny bird, barely able to chirp when he first held her in his arms, much too small to be in the world yet.

Distantly, Sam felt his thoughts interrupted by a dull thunk that landed by his left foot. Forcing his head down, he saw Bae Bae plop herself down by their group, whining as she pawed at his feet. He realized that the dog had been strangely absent during this whole dreadful business. Or perhaps, he thought humorlessly, he just hadn’t noticed anything past his own grief, not even what he had for breakfast. As he observed her, the man of science couldn’t help but begin to analyze the dog: her short bristly fur was still in tact to her skin but her frame was still less than the plumpness of her breed and at key points around her limbs and back were traced with the stitches that would never come out.

Oh, how Katie had cried when Bae Bae succumbed. Although it was nothing more than a happy accident that the family dog died unexpectedly at the same time that Sam was searching for a test subject, he couldn’t deny that he secretly wanted to kill his daughter’s sorrow at losing their beloved pet. He would do anything for her; he would move heaven and earth just to see her precious smile again. And now it was too late, too late for anything anymore. Both the machine and his daughter were gone. All that was left was his small prototype down in the laboratory basement, and a reanimated dog.

Lightning struck so close it shook the house, thoroughly shaking the foundation upon which the Holts knelt. Jolted, Sam’s head snapped up to the window just as the subsequent lightning illuminated Katie’s coffin. He felt the bolt stab through him with the revelation.

They’d have to mobilize quickly. The mourners were waiting down at the churchyard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've also forgotten to mention that I did make some art for this, back in October when the spoop was strong. You can view the animation I did on my tumblr HERE  
Until next time, my friends! Comments and kudos always appreciated!

**Author's Note:**

> A big thank you/shoutout to everyone on The Conservatory Discord group that helped me brainstorm this! I truly feel I do my best when I have their input, so thanks guys!  
Hope you enjoyed! See you in the next one!


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